Posted by Josh, a member of Brand New Aspiring Writers

1918. France. The air was clear, as with the skies. The sun was shining like an over-powered light bulb. Nature was just doing her normal business. It was a normal day. What was happening? Soldiers fighting for their lives. Christmas decorations of death littered on the ground. Civilians shrieking and desperately looking for a place to escape from the chaos, with no luck. Lead flying all over no man's land. Blood shedding constantly. Someone dying every second. Yeah, this was just a routine day in France.

On the ground, rifles pattered. Cannons pounded. Screaming of the nearly-dead made things worse. Men ran around in their trenches and shot at the enemy. Both sides tried to break through the opponent's line, but with no success. It was now impossible to move without tripping on dead people. Total stalemate.

That was, unless you were in the air. In, the air, it was a different story. Now you had space. Things were always moving. It was very difficult to be destroyed from the ground. In part it was actually somewhat fun.

However, this didn't mean it was safer in the air. It was too easy to be spotted. It was difficult to fly the plane and use the weapons at the same time. The planes were weak, one shot meant relocating your bedroom underground.

Even still, the air was still an advantage. Planes struck horror in the enemy's heart. It was easier to get the entrenched infantry from the air. So, both sides attempted to dominate the skies.

I wish to talk about a special man to me. His name was Walter Cain. About 6 feet tall, skinny, he was pretty much a normal guy. Except for one thing: he was a great pilot. He was an American who fought for the British. He considered himself invincible. He shot down many German planes and strafed many to death. He was admired.

However, one day, the worst day of my life commenced. Even though I wasn't there, well, you know, it still hurt. Walter was doing his usual routines. He was assigned to strafe the trenches and knock out as many German planes as possible. After eliminating a small group of German planes, his group felt free to attack the ground targets. He was lucky enough to find an artillery position nearby, so he and his squad knocked out that. Then, tragedy. He returned to the action to find that the rest of the group was missing. He looked everywhere, but could not locate them. Then he heard another aircraft closing in from behind. He sighed in relief, thinking it was one of his men. Suddenly, he realized something was wrong. The plane didn't sound like one of his. The mysterious plane attacked Walter. Walter looked back after surviving the first spray of lead. There, behind his aircraft was a large, red, and terrifying plane, locking in to his target. Walter knew he could not escape the German flying monster. He look back in front just in time for the final spray of bullets, which crippled the plane. After some puttering of the engine attempting to work again, it finally failed. Walter's plane began falling to the ground.
His life was coming to an end. At any moment, he would hopelessly collide to the ground. It would be a loss of a great American pilot. His heart shrunk as the increasing winds blew across his face. Doom was just in front of his eyes.

But, before impact, Walter noticed something on the battlefield he's never seen before. It was a huge chuck of metal with sticks coming out of it. He immediately knew it was a tank, but he didn't think it was Allied. He slightly saw a sign on the large monster. It was German. And there were no Allied tanks nearby. He figured his buddies could use his help. He yanked his joystick up as high as he could. This placed the plane in a fast 45 degree angle drop, putting the helpless tank within his path.

"Hello, German steel box!" he said during his final moments of his life. "My name is Walter Cain! Feel the glory of...well...me!"

BOOM!

Now what I just told you is mostly fact, with some legend thrown into it. No one knows what he said or heard because, obviously, nobody was there when he died. This story is about how my experiences almost left me in a similar situation.